TVSquad

The Los Angeles Times made a rather humorous error in their TV listings and some, depending on what they personally think of MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann, may not have noticed the difference.

Their TV listings for Thursday listed Jackass in the time slot where Countdown with Keith Olbermann should have been. The paper issued a correction the following day, disappointing thousands of easily hammered frat boys (including me) who thought MTV's nightly cavalcade of nut shots and poo fights had returned to television on another network.

Olbermann was OK with the mistake until one of the paper's bloggers used it as a political parry against him and his network. That launched the MSNBC host into a personal tirade against the blogger and anything else that happened to saunter into the path of Olbermann's angry spittle cannon.

It seems the never-ending feud between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly has become a kangaroo boxing match. The worst thing you can do is get in the middle of it.

That's exactly what the parent owners of Fox News and MSNBC tried to do when they arranged a "cease-fire" between them and their top-tier shows' "lieutenants."

The cease-fire, however, didn't last long. It's another case of the ol' Rufus T. Firefly conundrum for peace. Either side might be willing to do whatever it takes to end this war, but they've already paid two months' rent on the battlefield.

The traditional comedy roast has been hijacked by the cable networks and reproduced with more disappointing results than a sperm bank run by General Motors.

Comedy Central has done the best job for the most part while others like A&E's extremely mismanaged Gene Simmons Roast made for lower quality television are as horrific as those painfully dated Dean Martin's Roasts that are sold on infomercials in the wee small hours of the morning.

The secret to doing a good roast isn't really that much of a secret: hire people who are actually paid to be funny. That's why the Roast of Joan Rivers could be the best one yet.

It looks like even the magic formula that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay created to become comedy movie mavericks doesn't work on the aptly named "idiot box."

HBO's new Eastbound & Down bombed in its premiere episode and lost nearly 40 percent of the lead-in audience from Flight of the Conchords. It also only scored a measly .3 in the ratings, which is dangerously close to "HelloLarrydom."

But fear not, Ferrell freaks. This is HBO, the network that dared to mess with convention, give fledgling shows time to grow and kept Arli$$ on the air for six whole seasons.

Fascinating piece in the L.A. Times this weekend, about how many old TV shows are showing up on YouTube. And when I say "old" I don't mean All in the Family or Charlie's Angels. I'm talking about stuff from the 40s and 50s, like Captain Midnight, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, old Dinah Shore shows, and old commercials.

It's great to watch these early shows online (you can watch shows from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today on our own In2TV), but is it legal for people to just put these shows online?

Responding to criticism in a recent Los Angeles Times piece that this season's 24 is lackluster and that viewers are tuning out, a co-executive producer of the show said failing to chart out story lines and sending several characters to sleep with the fishes are largely to blame for this predicament.

"You try to keep things interesting, find new ways to tell the story, and unfortunately we wound up repeating ourselves somewhat," David Fury, co-executive producer told TV Week. "I still would claim that regardless of the quality drop-off that people are saying, the show's still very strong. It's still one of the best things on television."

Monday nights at 9 has become one of the major time slots on the networks these days. On NBC you have the megahit Heroes. Over on CBS there's the comedy smash Two and a Half Men, and FOX has 24. What do you watch?

The Los Angeles Times has a piece about the battle for viewers in the time slot, and they say that over 45 million people are watching the three shows at that time. The paper wonders if one of the networks will blink next season and move one of the shows to let it breathe a little bit. Though no one is planning that as of yet.

Creators of 24 met late last year with human rights advocates, the dean of West Point's military academy and experienced interrogators to discuss torture and how the torture scenes on 24 affect how people are questioned by authorities in real life, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The panel of torture experts wanted to persuade 24 writers to "show torture subjects taking weeks or months to break, spitting out false or unreliable intelligence, and even dying. As they do in the real world," the article said.

Emmy nominations were a bit baffling this year. Even though there was a new balloting procedure to nominate the best of television, some of the decisions still left many of us scratching our heads. For example, why was Geena Davis from the now canceled Commander in Chief nominated for best actress in a drama series, or, why was Lost and Desperate Housewives were completely left off of the ballot? Well, thanks to a savvy Internet patron and his use of YouTube you can now see the episodes the Emmy nominating committee viewed to determine their choices.

Emmy voting began on June 4th, which explains all the Battlestar Galactica advertisements I've seen all over the web on industry pages lately. SciFi is campaigning pretty heavily for Emmy nominations for its highest-rated show. It has shipped the entire season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD to voting members of the academy (supposedly, some of those DVDs are for sale now on EBay).

The Los Angeles Times website, The Envelope, has a full list of television shows that are campaigning for Emmys by purchasing ads in industry magazines, on websites, and by sending DVDs to members. Interestingly, canceled shows like Alias and Arrested Development haven't even bothered to ask 'for your consideration' this year.

Emmy nominees will be announced July 6.

The CW is reportedly thinking about giving 7th Heaven an eleventh season, even though The WB announced its cancellation back in November. According to the Los Angeles Times industry blog, called Channel Island, talks are underway to keep the family-friendly soap on the air for at least one more season.

The big question is why The CW would want to do this? When it canceled 7th Heaven, The WB said it's because the show will lose $16 million this year. I doubt these actors would agree to bump down their salaries for one last go.